Securities fraud

Recent frauds in investment banks and securities houses have revealed how vulnerable modern financial institutions are to criminal activity by their employees. In this paper, we examine how regulators may limit the incidence of securities fraud by encouraging firms to provide managers and dealers with appropriate incentives and by imposing ex post penalties once a fraud has been discovered     

Voter decisions on eminent domain and police power reforms

One unresolved issue arising from the use of eminent domain power involves how the perceived benefits and costs of eminent domain power affect people’s positions on the reform of eminent domain and police power law. The paper addresses this issue by estimating a voting model that explains voters’ decisions on eminent domain and police power reform referenda in the US. Estimates indicate that eminent domain referendum outcomes hinged on voters’ fundamental values and ideology, and voters’ immediate self-interest. Voters’ fundamental values and ideology affects referendum outcomes insofar as educational attainment in a county has a statistically significant effect on support for reform. Despite the greater incidence of eminent domain in low income and poorer communities, success of reform referenda in this study was found to be greater in counties with higher incomes and lower unemployment rates. This implies that whatever asymmetry exists in the exercise of eminent domain law across income groups does not affect voter reaction to eminent domain reforms. Moreover, counties with high unemployment rates consider the larger potential benefits from urban renewal projects in vote decision-making providing a link between self-interest and voting behavior.     

THE MOTIVES AND CONSEQUENCES OF DEBT-EQUITY SWAPS AND DEFEASANCES: MORE EVIDENCE THAT IT DOES NOT PAY TO MANIPULATE EARNINGS

On February 9,1982, Hammermill Paper registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to swap as many as 400,000 common shares for $13.4 million of the company's 8.07% promissory notes due February 1, 1997. The resulting swap increased Hammermill's 1st quarter earnings by $3.7 million, accounting for more than a third of its earnings for that period. Between February 9 and 10, the market value of Hammermill's equity fell by 4.5%.
On January 28, 1985, United Airlines announced that its preceding 4th quarter earnings included a $3 million extraordinary gain from the defeasance of $38 million of outstanding notes, and that earnings for all of 1984 included a defeasance gain of $21.5 million, representing 7.6% of UAL's 1984 net income. Between January 28 and 29, the market value of UAL's equity declined by 4.6%.     

Moving towards consumer involvement in maternity services in the north‐east of Ireland

This article uses a case‐study approach to focus on developments in maternity services in the north‐east of Ireland where there is occurring a planned move towards active consumer involvement. In a country with a poor record of consumer involvement, this is a very welcome and innovative development. The Health Service in Ireland is in crisis, characterized by a very prolonged and difficult restructuring, extreme difficulties in recruiting and retraining staff, lack of resources, long waiting times in accident and emergency units with the media reporting daily counts of those left lying on trolleys for extended periods. The north‐east of the country has been affected by the closure of two maternity units in Monaghan and Dundalk. The region has been rocked in recent years by a major health scandal with a long‐serving obstetrician being struck off the medical register for carrying out an excessive number of caesarean hysterectomies. Out of this, there is emerging an innovative woman‐centred maternity service in the north‐east of the country. This article evaluates these developments with a particular focus on consumer involvement.     

Skill supply and biased technical change

This article contributes to the debate on skill-biased technical change by studying the dynamics of skill supply and wage inequality in an endogenous growth model with ability-biased technical progress. Due to a discouragement effect, rising within groups inequality reduces incentives to become educated for ordinary-ability workers. This mechanism generates a non-monotonic relationship between the growth rate and skill supply driving wage inequality upward during periods of accelerating technical change. This theoretical explanation is consistent with the apparent ambiguous relationship between the relative skill supply and inequality in the last decades in several OECD countries.